Time Magazine Cover Sparks Controversy In Metro Birmingham - ABC 33/40 - Birmingham News, Weather, Sports
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The May issue of "Time" magazine features a 26 year old mother breastfeeding her three year old son. The picture is under the headline "Are you mom enough?" and has stirred a hornet's nest of controversy...
"I didn't have to be so in your face," says one mother Jenny Logan.
"It's more sexual versus a mom whose loving and nurturing and breastfeeding her child in the picture," says Kristen Rezek. Kristen Rezek breast-fed all three of her girls until they were one; she says the cover of the magazine sends a bad message to mothers who nurse their children. "That just doesn't depict the nurturing, bonding environment," says Rezek.
But it's not just the picture that's causing so much discussion; it's the three year old that seems to be making people ask the questions... when are children too old to breast-feed?
"I've never known anyone to breastfeed until they were three," says Logan. Even fathers weighed in about the controversial cover. "I know some families who do that, I think it's a personal issue," says one father.
Patty Landry is a lactation consultant. She says, although the cover is shocking to many people, she's seen mothers breastfeed children older than three. "It's just very unusual and I think that's the shock value that you see right now, people are not used to that in this country," says Landry. Landry says the American Academy of Pediatrics says breastfeeding children over three does not cause psychological problems for the child. "They recommend continued breastfeeding as long as it's mutual for both the mother and the child," says Landry.
Some parents say they consider the cover distasteful, but say it's doing what it's intended to do...spark conversation. Logan says, "If that brings it to the forefront of a conversation and makes people want to discuss it, then it is doing something positive."
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